Thursday, June 04th

📊 Did you know?

Just 14% of social media professionals feel their organization can actually use social data properly.

(Sprout Social, 2026)

🚀 Top 5: May Creator Campaigns

Every month, I round up the most interesting creator campaigns brands ran.

Not the biggest budgets ❌ The smartest ideas ✅

Here are 6 creator campaigns worth studying 👇

1️⃣ Fishwife × Toni Bravo

Beauty and lifestyle creator Toni Bravo spent three months posting sardine recipes and crediting tinned fish for her glowing skin.

Fishwife's products were all over her content.

For free. No deal.

And then, Fishwife jumped on the opportunity with a limited-edition $65 "Toni Bravo Bundle" of her favorites.

The brand didn't manufacture this from a brief. They watched a creator genuinely evangelize their product, let the affinity build in public, then turned it into a product drop the audience already believed in.

Why it worked:

• The endorsement was real before it was paid — so it never felt like an ad

• Three months of organic content did the trust-building a campaign can't buy

• Packaging it as her bundle gave fans a product with a story attached

💡 Lesson: Your best creator deal is one that started organically. Find the people already posting about you, then formalize the love — don't fabricate it.

🔥 This is why, our team at Click Analytic launched our “Social Listening” tool, so you can detect creators genuinely loving your brand - more infos here

2️⃣ The Least-Known Player Alive

It started with no brand at all. Argentine creator Valen Scarsini ("El Scarso") set his audience a mission:

→ find the least-known player at the 2026 World Cup and make him famous.

He landed on New Zealand's Tim Payne — 4,715 followers, two posts all year.

→ The launch video pulled 6M+ views 

→ Payne jumped to ~4M followers in days, passing the All Blacks and every NZ sports account

Then a brand caught the wave. AT&T sponsored the payoff everyone wanted — flying the two together for an IRL meetup, posted as #ATTcreator: "Meeting Tim Payne thanks to AT&T for the connection" (345K likes.)

Why it worked:

• A clear, absurd mission turned passive followers into an active workforce

• "Unite behind a nobody" let fans of every nation join in

• AT&T didn't start the trend — it bought in at the peak and delivered the ending fans already wanted

💡 Lesson: The smartest brand play isn't always starting the moment — it's spotting a wave with real momentum and sponsoring the payoff the audience is already begging for.

3️⃣ Roland Garros (French Tennis Open Marketing Ops)

Roland Garros didn't run one campaign in May: it ran a marketing playbook built on reaching audiences who don't normally watch tennis.

Play 1 — Tennis Clash. The tournament leaned into its partnership with the mobile game, inviting pro players to actually play it during the live edition. Pros playing the game is the most credible ad the app could run, and it put the brand in front of millions of gamers.

Play 2 — Jeffrey Cagnes. They brought the pastry chef to cook courtside, pulling a food audience toward the tennis from a completely different corner of the internet.

Why it worked:

• A live event is borrowed attention — Roland Garros spent it reaching adjacent crowds, not just existing fans

• Each play targeted a specific outside audience (gamers, foodies) with content native to them

• Two small, sharp activations beat one generic "official partner" post

💡 Lesson: The best brand integrations feel native to the product, not bolted on. A tennis game promoted by real pros playing it works because it's exactly what the audience wants to see — match the activation to what people already came for, and it stops feeling like an ad.

4️⃣ “BlaBlaRace”

Quick context: BlaBlaCar is the French long-distance carpooling app — it connects drivers with empty seats to passengers heading the same way, across cities and countries.

So instead of sponsoring content, BlaBlaCar built a format that put its product at the center: "BlaBlaRace"

Two creators — LaPannyy and Adher — raced two students from Le Havre to Paris in 24 hours. Unlimited budget, but only BlaBlaCar allowed for transport. Absurd side-challenges throughout (like gifting a magnet to every driver).

The kicker: the losers' faces became the brand's new profile picture across socials.

→ Teaser hit 1M+ views on TikTok, with more Shorts rolling out on the creators' channels

Why it worked:

• Owning the format puts the product at the center of the entertainment, not bolted on

• The "only BlaBlaCar" rule made the brand the engine of the whole plot

• A repeatable concept means season 2, 3, 4 — not a one-off post

💡 Lesson: Don't rent a creator's audience for one video — build a format you own. A branded show keeps paying off long after the first upload.

5️⃣ Mayadorable × Zalando (The Redemption Arc)

In 2025, French influencer Mayadorable got mocked for her Cannes red-carpet dress.

In 2026, she rewrote the story — teaming up with Zalando and a stylist to find the perfect look, and bringing her followers along through every try-on.

Instead of hiding from last year's criticism, she built the content around fixing it.

Why it worked:

• The redemption arc is one of the most binge-able story shapes there is

• Sharing the try-ons made followers feel part of the decision

• Vulnerability about last year made the win feel earned, not flexed

💡 Lesson: When a real story is already unfolding, a brand can step in as the solution — and only upside follows. Zalando didn't invent a narrative; it attached its product to a genuine, relatable moment the audience was already living with the creator. Real story + helpful brand = a win everyone roots for.

⭐️ BONUS CAMPAIGN - Victoria's Secret Pink

Pink launched its new Soho flagship with a private influencer shopping spree — before the public opening.

The guest list was mostly existing Pink partners: beauty creator Katie Fang, model Samira Ahmed, Olympic gymnast Suni Lee and more.

By the time the doors opened to the public, the store had already lived on thousands of feeds.

@vspink

No, you’re not dreaming, PINK is really in SoHo! While we get acquainted with our new neighborhood, stop by to say hi. All this is waiting... See more

Why it worked:

• Seeding trusted partners first manufactured social proof on day one

• Using existing partners kept the content authentic, not transactional

• A physical opening became a content moment, not just a ribbon-cutting

💡 Lesson: Treat every physical launch like a content set. Invite creators first, let them build the anticipation, and you open to a crowd that already feels like they've been inside.

🎁 Want to run campaigns like these?

The brands above didn't get lucky ❌ 

→ They found the right creators, moved fast, and trusted the process.

Click Analytic gives you the tools to do the same. Find creators that actually fit your brand, track campaign performance, and scale what works.

👉 Start for free

What you can copy for your campaigns

• Formalize organic love, don't fake it. Your best creator deals already started for free (Fishwife).

• Sponsor the payoff, not just the trend. Spot an organic wave with real momentum and deliver the ending the audience already wants (El Scarso × Tim Payne × AT&T).

• Make integrations native to the product. A tennis game promoted by pros actually playing it works because it's what fans came to see (Roland Garros).

• Own the format. A branded show you control beats a one-off sponsored post (BlaBlaCar).

• Attach your product to a real story. Step in as the solution to a genuine moment the audience is already living — only upside follows (Mayadorable × Zalando).

• Make launches content moments. Seed creators before the doors open (Victoria's Secret Pink).

🎬 Instagram introduces a teleprompter tool for creators.

💳 Meta rolls out new subscription add-ons and AI packages.

📅 TikTok launches a separate event-based app, TikTok Pro Events.

📹 X adds a video reaction feature on iOS.

📺 Meta tests Series for episodic Reels on Instagram and Facebook.

💬 Reddit launches video replies in comments.

🏷️ YouTube introduces more prominent AI labels.

🛒 TikTok Shop expands to Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland.

🌍 TikTok launches TikTok GO, a way to discover and book local hotels, attractions and tours.

🎵 YouTube lets creators add music to image posts and carousels in the Shorts feed.

⏰ Adam Mosseri says posting time matters only a little — check your insights for when your audience is active.